Just completed in Toronto, the Fifth Decennial International Conference on Mineral Exploration — Exploration 07 — shows just how much progress in exploration technologies has rested on the expansion of computing power.
Three-dimensional visualization and the use of advanced computing systems to calculate geophysical inversions were prominent in the technical program, which ranged through geophysics and geochemistry to ore-deposit models and their uses in guiding the choice of exploration methods.
While increased computing power — and its wider availability to junior companies, to small consultants, and to the front-line personnel in large organizations — has made the largest impact over the last decade, several presentations examined new developments in geophysical and geochemical technology.
Speakers charged with the task of predicting where their science is headed noted the limited support the industry has given exploration technology over the last ten years, and also pointed out the dangers in the “greying” of the mineral industry, which stands to lose a large part of its expertise in the next decade if younger scientific talent isn’t developed in the fields.
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